12.29.2016

2016 BEST PHOTOGRAPHY BOOKS : ROUND-UP PART I

Publisher: Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art

In Brian Lanker's, From the Heart, an oversized 224-page coffee-table book documenting Lanker’s groundbreaking work, from his Pulitzer Prize-winning photo-essays at the Topeka Capital-Journal in the early 1970s to his tribute to influential African-American women, I Dream a World, one of the best-selling photo books of all time, to his best images for publications like LIFE, National Geographic and Sports Illustrated. Published by the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art; designed by Pentagram partner DJ Stout and designer Barrett Fry; impeccable master prints from the drum-scans and digital production mastery by Sean Perry round out this extraordinary monograph. 


Narciso Contreras "Libya : A Human Marketplace"
Co-Publishers: Fondation Carmignac | Editions SKIRA

An elegantly designed and produced book by Mexican photographer, Narciso Contreras, the 7th Laureate of the Carmignac Photojournalism Award. "Contreras lays bare an unfolding humanitarian crisis in which illegal migrants, refugees and asylum seekers are at the mercy of militias who exploit them for financial gain.” The overall book, beautifully typeset on magnificent paper, belies the dangerous situations Contreras put himself in to bring us this ongoing chronicle documenting the brutal reality of human trafficking. Texts by Narciso Contreras and Ela Stapley; Hard Cover, 102 pages, English+French.



Myles Little is an award-winning photo editor at TIME magazine. Outside of TIME, Little curated an exhibit of documentary photography about wealth inequality with an accompanying book, 1% Privilege in a Time of Global Inequality. "If you are concerned that the top 1% of the world owns 50% of all wealth, then this is the photo book for you!” Included are some of the best photographers in the world, like Christopher Anderson, Nina Berman, Michael Light and David Chancellor. Edited by Myles Little. Texts by Joseph Stiglitz, Geoff Dyer, Myles Little. Hardcover, 80 pages.


diane arbus: in the beginning
Publisher: The Metropolitan Museum of Art 

The exhibition, diane arbus: in the beginning, was curated by Jeff L. Rosenheim, Curator in Charge of the Department of Photographs at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Rosenheim commented, "Arbus's early photographs are wonderfully rich in achievement and perhaps as quietly riveting and ultimately controversial as the iconic images for which she is so widely known.” This fully illustrated catalogue - with two essays: "in the beginning" by Jeff L. Rosenheim and "notes from the archive" by Karan Rinaldo, Senior Research Assistant - accompanied the show. Hardcover, 256 pages. Ephemera: Neal Selkirk is the only person ever authorized to make posthumous prints of the work of Diane Arbus.  Read My Interview with Neal Selkirk



Introduction by Elisabeth Biondi
Published by Damiani

"He takes wry photographs of fashion and the fashionable but without malice, he reveals robot-like models, multitasking make-up artists, a woman doing pushups on the sidelines. He truly enjoys pageantry, the foibles of the style conscious, and the over-the-top displays of vanity—they all make up the spectacle for him." - ELISABETH BIONDI



Photographs 1993–2016 
Publisher: Peanut Press

Who doesn’t love David Carol? Now a compilation of 32 photographs representing the last 25 years of his work is being published in conjunction with his first retrospective exhibition, "NO PLAN B" at the Leica Gallery in Soho, New York! The photos of David's travels include images from Russia to Turkey, Mexico to the Canadian Arctic, all with his very unique and personal vision. Afterword by Jason Eskenazi. Available in two editions: Hardback trade edition - bound in black and a Limited edition of 99 - bound in white, and includes a signed and numbered 6” x 8" gelatin silver print of Gorilla. More books from Peanut Press


Publisher: Fall Line Press

Nancy McCrary, SouthxSoutheast Photo Magazine Publisher and Editor-in-Chief: "Bill Yates arrived at my farm one day a couple of years ago. He was one of those “finds” you make on Facebook I probably would have never met otherwise. He was carrying a large, flat box full of a magical trip back to 1972, my teenage years. Bill spent his weekends during the better part of 1972-1973 photographing kids at a roller skating rink outside of Tampa, Florida and inside this box were the b/w prints he had produced, prints that had remained in a box for all these years. In the 70’s socializing in the rural areas of America was mostly a weekend event, the roller rink was where the action was - a stew of poorly controlled emotions and raging hormones, with some fashion thrown in for flair. Bill Yates captured a place and time with all its roughness and beauty, provoking contemplation and memories. Laurie Shock’s book design and Barbara Griffin’s photo editing make it flow as if you’re back there." – NANCY McCRARY

by Byrd M. Williams IV
Foreword by Roy Flukinger. Afterword by Anne Wilkes Tucker. 
Publisher: University of North Texas Press

"Byrd M. Williams IV has compiled a fascinating look into 120 years of his family’s four generations of photographers in his monograph, Proof : Photographs from Four Generations of a Texas Family. He deftly captures the history, personality and individuality of each age, presenting all through the vernacular of photography. Williams time-travels through images that predate the Civil War, from cyanotypes and ambrotypes, to today's world of digital capture and ink jet prints.” – Elizabeth Avedon 



Homeschooled, Photographs by Rachel Papo, “A quiet meditation on the home education movement from the children's perspective,” photographed around Woodstock, New York, where a small number of families follow this path. Hardback, 128 pages; With text by Ariel Shanberg and Holly Graff; 85 color images. 


Photography As Object in the Digital Age
 Publisher: George Eastman Museum

Paul Kopeikin, Kopeikin Gallery, Owner and Director:
Lisa Hostetler’s “A Matter of Memory: Photography as Object in the Digital Age” is my favorite book of the year. It’s a comprehensive survey with impressive idiosyncratic additions of the most recognizable and important movement in photography of the last decade. The insightful text confirms Hostetler’s importance as curator and writer, while it’s layout makes it a valuable reference as well as an easy and fun read." - PAUL KOPEIKIN

"Susan S. Bank peels away the veneer from Havana, that maddening, mythical metropolis with one eye on the Florida Straits. An imaginary tropical urban paradise, Havana is flirtatious and consistently inconsistent. By-passing worn out clichés, Bank illuminates the invisible with her iconic, metaphorical black and white photographs.” Hardback, 128 pages. Photo-Eye Books

 
Published by STANLEY/BARKER

Lucy Kumara Moore, Director Claire de Rouen Books, London:
Gentlemen presents a collection of staged photographs of upper class English men in the private gentlemen's clubs that surround St James's in London. Knorr describes these as 'the most elite and exclusive enclaves of male power in Britain'. Taken between 1981 and 1983, the images foreground the semiology of language, architectural setting, fashion and pose in relation to aristocratic values. Gentlemen is published by Stanley/Barker.” – LUCY KUMARA MOORE 



Publisher: Editions Bessard

Robin Hammond’s ‘My Lagos’ introduces us to the color, energy and chaos of Africa’s largest city. An original Nollywood film poster wraps this beautifully designed book delivering an authentic piece of the city to the audience. Full bleed color photographs take us on a journey through bustling Lagos streets and into the homes of the rich, poor, and rising middle class. ‘My Lagos’ opens our eyes to an Africa rarely seen in western media. Placed over and between these views of Lagos is a series of large format Polaroid portraits accompanied by quotes from the sitters themselves. A businessman, an actor, a fisherman, a pastor, a prostitute speak of their hopes and dreams in this city of strivers. ‘My Lagos’ is intense and bold....much like the city itself. Editions Bessard



 Jacqueline Roberts: Nebula 
Published by Damiani

Reviving 19th-century photographic wet plate collodion processes, Spanish photographer Jacqueline Roberts long exposures required by the process, ease the subjects into detaching themselves from their immediate surroundings; they appear to the viewer almost as if suspended in time and in space. Nebula is a collection of portraits that capture the mist of psychological and emotional change in youth; a glimpse into their nascent sense of self. Hardback, 144 pages, 87 B+W plates 



"Absence of Being is a haunting, intensely personal and yet extremely universal exploration of the subconscious world, which began with Susan Bernstine’s highly praised first monograph, Within Shadows. Burnstine captures images that purge her dreams. Finding no existing camera that could create what her mind envisioned, she began to experiment with building her own and molding her own lenses until she arrived at the prototype for the handmade cameras she continues to use. Hardback, 120 pages, 80 black-and-white images described as 21st-century impressionism.




12.13.2016

BEN ARNON: Documents Life at PhotoNola

A classic hat lays next to the pew beside the foot of a 102-year old gentleman at Berean Baptist Church in Philadelphia. Photograph (c) Ben Arnon

"Police Your Racism" - Protestors demonstrate against police brutality at Union Square in New York City in July 2016, days after the back-to-back killings of Alton Sterling and Philando Castille. Photograph (c) Ben Arnon

Several teams of girls await their Irish dance performances backstage in the 8-hand Mid-Atlantic Regional Competition in Philadelphia. Photograph (c) Ben Arnon

A bucking bronco throws tosses a rider and his hat to the ground at the Friday Night Rodeo in Dubois, Wyoming. Photograph (c) Ben Arnon
 
I met Ben Arnon, a New York City-based visual journalist, at PhotoNola 2016 Portfolio Reviews. His work focus's documentary reportage, street portraiture, and the impact of human existence on urban landscapes. He documents the unflinching honesty of people’s lives and is particularly interested in examining themes of socio-economic, racial and class dynamics amongst and within communities of people.

Photographs from Ben’s most recent work, entitled "RIO," are on view throughout New York’s Chelsea Market to December 31, 2016. Photographs from Ben’s “Black Lives Matter” series were exhibited at Davis Orton Gallery from October 8 to November 13, 2016, and were exhibited during the 2016 DNC Convention in Philadelphia at an exhibition called Truth To Power.  

Ben writes frequently for the Huffington Post, offering social commentary on a wide array of topics including visual arts, culture, society, digital media, and politics.    


12.12.2016

ANNA LaBENZ: Suspended Breath at PhotoNola

 rom the series Suspended Breath
Photograph (c) Anna LeBenz

 rom the series Suspended Breath
Photograph (c) Anna LeBenz

from the series Suspended Breath
Photograph (c) Anna LeBenz

"Peeling back the layers I see beyond the boundaries of the ordinary. Discovering pieces of my life that were overlooked or hidden. I want to  know what my head hid from my heart. My art gives my lungs room to breathe, my heart freedom to flutter, and my mind space to dream."

I met Anna LaBenz at the 2016 PhotoNola Portfolio Reviews. She recently graduated with a Master's of Fine Art degree in Photography from Maine Media College. Her background began in the high desert plains of Wyoming where she grew up and now lives in a beautiful mountain town in northern Arizona. She is inspired by the dramatic landscape of Arizona, her life experiences, and those who are closest to her and is currently working on large scale installations. 


11.22.2016

DAVID CAROL: No Plan B | 1993-2016

 Boy In Lake, Maine
Photograph (c) David J. Carol

  Joe With Fish, Baffin Island, 1997
Photograph (c) David J. Carol

 Turnaround
Photograph (c) David J. Carol

DAVID J. CAROL   |   NO PLAN B
Trade edition - bound in black
Photographs from 1993-2016. Afterword by Jason Eskenazi

DAVID J. CAROL   |   NO PLAN B
Limited edition - Bound in white, and includes a signed and numbered 6"x 8" gelatin silver print of Gorilla. Edition of 99. Photographs from 1993-2016. Afterword by Jason Eskenazi $150.00

In David Carol's own words, "Hey, did you guys know I'm selling my new book, NO PLAN B, for only $35.00? Did you also know I'm selling the same book in a limited edition with a signed silver print for only $150.00?"

David J. Carol’s new book, NO PLAN B, from publisher Peanut Press, is a retrospective of his uniquely humorous and often surreal personal work from the 1990s to the present. The book is a culmination of images from David’s “road trips” from the Arctic Ocean to post-Soviet Russia, from the Mojave Desert to the streets of Istanbul. Consisting of 32 black and white photographs, with an afterward by renowned photojournalist Jason Eskenazi, NO PLAN B is available in two bindings; the “black” trade edition, and a “white” limited edition, which includes a gelatin silver print signed and numbered by the artist. For sale online at Peanut Press.

The book NO PLAN B coincides with a retrospective exhibition on view at the Leica Gallery Soho, New York from February 1 - March 31, 2017. An opening reception and book signing with the artist will be held February 16 from 6:00 - 9:00pm.


DAVID J. CAROL   |   NO PLAN B
Photographs from 1993-2016
Afterword by Jason Eskenazi


Available in two editions:
Trade edition - bound in black. Limited edition - Bound in white, and includes a signed and numbered 6"x 8" gelatin silver print of Gorilla. Edition of 99. Ships within 2 weeks. 

RUTH GRUBER: PhotoJournalist Humanitarian Author Dies at 105


“I had two tools to fight injustice — words and images, my typewriter and my camera....I just felt that I had to fight evil, and I’ve felt like that since I was 20 years old. And I’ve never been an observer. I have to live a story to write it.”–NY Times

Photographer, journalist, author Ruth Gruber (September 30, 1911 - November 17, 2016) died at age 105. Gruber stumbled into one of the great rescue stories of the Holocaust when the U.S. government appointed her to escort nearly 1,000 Jews across U-boat infested waters to the shores of the United States. I spoke to Gruber for La Lettre on the night she received the International Center of Photography's Cornell Capa Award in 2011 at age 100.



The New York Times Obituary by Robert D. McFadden, November 17, 2016: ….Over seven decades, she was a correspondent in Europe and the Middle East and wrote 19 books, mostly based on her own experiences. Acting for President Franklin D. Roosevelt, she escorted nearly 1,000 refugees from 19 Nazi-occupied nations to a safe haven in the United States on a perilous trans-Atlantic crossing in 1944. They included the only large contingent of Jews allowed into America during World War II. As with many of her exploits, the rescue became the subject of one of her books, “Haven: The Dramatic Story of 1,000 World War II Refugees and How They Came to America” (1983). It was made into a two-part CBS mini-series in 2001, starring Natasha Richardson as Ms. Gruber. Read more in The New York Times…..

11.16.2016

NARCISO CONTRERAS "Libya: A Human Marketplace" Fondation Carmignac | SKIRA

Narciso Contreras "Libya : A Human Marketplace"
Publishers Fondation Carmignac | Editions SKIRA

(click on images to enlarge)

Narciso Contreras  Sabha, March 2016
The corpses of illegal sub-Saharan migrants lie in the morgue of Sabha City, after having been collected from the streets and the desert during previous days.

Narciso Contreras  Zawiyah, May 2016
A group of sub-Saharan illegal migrants and refugees is crowded into one section of the Zawiyah detention center, a warehouse-like facility holding as many as two thousand detainees at any time, making it the largest of it's type on Libyan soil. The center serves as a distribution facility in the human trafficking supply chain, and from here inmates are resold to other militias on the west coast of Libya.

Narciso Contreras  Tajoura, May 2016
Sub-Saharan illegal migrants and refugees on the Tajoura shore after having been arrested in the Mediterranean Sea by the Libyan coastguard. 

Narciso Contreras  Surman, June 2016
Illegal female migrants queue in the prison yard as they are loaded on to buses to be transferred to another detention center, after having been sold by the militia group ruling the Surman detention center in the west of Libya.

+  +  +

I just received a powerful new monograph from the Fondation Carmignac on the theme of Libya by Mexican photographer, Narciso Contreras, the 7th Laureate of the Carmignac Photojournalism Award. It is an elegantly designed and produced book co-published by Fondation Carmignac with Editions Skira, Paris and printed in Belgium. The overall book, beautifully typeset on magnificent paper, belies the dangerous situations Contreras put himself in to bring us this ongoing chronicle documenting the brutal reality of human trafficking as he traveled through the complex tribal society of post-Gaddafi Libya from February to June 2016.

"Contreras lays bare an unfolding humanitarian crisis in which illegal migrants, refugees and asylum seekers are at the mercy of militias who exploit them for financial gain. Held in detention centres for illegal migrants, they are subjected to inhumane conditions. He weaves a compelling narrative to show how, instead of being a place of transit for migrants on their way to Europe, Libya has actually become a trafficking market where people are bought and sold on a daily basis. He provides us with a glimpse of the complex and horrifying context migrants are faced with."

 Narciso Contreras,
7th Laureate of the Carmignac Photojournalism Award
"Libya: A Human Marketplace"
Texts by Narciso Contreras and Ela Stapley
Hard Cover, 102 pages, English+French
ISBN 978-2-37074-043-4

Production: Fondation Carmignac, Direction: Gaia Donzet, Carmignac Photojournalism Award Gestion, Direction: Emeric Glayse, Communications manager: Valentine Dolla, Photo Editors: Patrick Baz, Narciso Contreras, Text: Ela Stapley, Photography & Investigation: Narciso Contreras, Publisher: EDITIONS SKIRA, Senior Editor: Nathalie Prat-Couadau, Editorial Coordination: María Laura Ribadeneira

+  +  +

In 2009, the Fondation Carmignac launched the Carmignac Photojournalism Award with the aim to support, each year, a photojournalist in undertaking a photographic and investigative assignment exploring a theme or an area of the world at the centre of geostrategic conflicts. Selected by an international jury, the Laureate receives 50,000 EUR that enable him/her to spend time into the field, as well as a fully-financed monograph and a touring exhibition of the project.

Created in 2000 by Edouard Carmignac and directed by Gaïa Donzet, the Fondation Carmignac has three strands: the corporate collection comprising nearly 250 contemporary works of art, the annual Carmignac Photojournalism Award led by Emeric Glayse, and the Foundation's project to open an exhibition space and a sculpture park to the public on the preserved site of Porquerolles (Var). Edouard Carmignac’s desire to share his passion for contemporary art, promote freedom of expression and increase awareness of contemporary world issues led him to the creation of this Foundation.

Upcoming Carmignac Photojournalism Award exhibition: Saatchi Gallery, London, May 16–June 16, 2017

11.07.2016

ANDERSON + LOW: James Bond's SPECTRE

Photograph (c) Anderson + Low

Book Signing "On the Set of James Bond's SPECTRE"
ParisPhoto November 12, 3pm

Anderson + Low
"On the Set of James Bond's SPECTRE"
Book Signing: 12, November, 2016, 3pm
Hatje Cantze stand F4
Paris Photo, Grand Palais

This project is based on the brilliant artifice of the spectacular sets from the latest James Bond movie, SPECTRE. Shooting entirely at Pinewood Studios, UK, we highlight a head-on collision of fantasy and reality by photographing the sets’ massive scale and extraordinary detail. Allowing the bare soundstage to intrude on the images would normally shatter the illusion of the sets. In this case, however, it has the reverse effect and enhances the sense of illusion, artifice and wonder.

Five prints from this project were released to coincide with the film premiere (November 2015) at Phillips, London. The rest of the project was exhibited at CWC Gallery, Berlin in June 2016 to coincide with this book's publication by Hatje Cantz.

SARA JANE BOYERS : DETROIT in PARIS

Photograph © Sara Jane Boyers

Photograph © Sara Jane Boyers

Photograph © Sara Jane Boyers

DETROIT
November 10 – December 24, 2016
69 ave Daumesnil, 75012 Paris
Opening Reception, November 10, 6:30pm (18h30)

11.05.2016

MONA KUHN: NEW WORKS in PARIS

Photographs (c) Mona Kuhn

Photograph (c) Mona Kuhn


"MONA KUHN: NEW WORKS"
NOVEMBER 4 TO DECEMBER 17, 2016

Galerie Catherine et André Hug
40, rue de Seine / 2, rue de l’Echaudé
75006 PARIS

11.03.2016

KACPER KOWALSKI: Fade To White

 Copyright © Kacper Kowalski. All rights reserved

 Copyright © Kacper Kowalski. All rights reserved

 Copyright © Kacper Kowalski. All rights reserved

Copyright © Kacper Kowalski. All rights reserved

Fade To White 
by Curator Bill Shapiro

Before Kacper Kowalski was a fine-art photographer, he was a pilot . . . and before he was a pilot, he was an architect. So perhaps it’s not surprising that he looks at the world the way an architect looks at his blueprints: from the top down. Of course, in these days of drones and Google Earth, it’s hard to bring people a landscape they haven’t seen before. Which is precisely what makes Kacper’s pictures so remarkable: From his paraglider, 500 feet above the earth, he turns everyday locations into striking ethereal scenes, capturing a symmetry, drama, and dreaminess we didn’t know was there.

We’ve all seen the work of high-flying aerial photographers who travel to exotic locations and bring us back bird’s-eye images of the Great Wall, Great Pyramids, or Great Barrier Reef. But Kacper made the decision long ago to uncover beauty in the humble forests, working farms, and industrial landscapes within driving distance of his home in Gdynia, Poland, a port city on the Baltic Sea. And so he obsessively crisscrosses the area, often during the coldest, most forbidding days of winter when he has the skies to himself.

When I was the editor of LIFE magazine, I was continually nudging the staff to “show us something we’ve seen before in a way we’ve never seen it.” This is actually incredibly difficult, and yet Kacper does it with each image. He can photograph a place we might pass every day, but compose the picture so masterfully as to render it as a never-before-seen abstraction—a visual puzzle open to interpretation. That sense of surprise is one of the reasons I love curating his work: Sometimes you have no idea what you’re looking at even while it feels incredibly familiar. Holding those two sentiments at the same time is exhilarating. In that way, Kacper’s pictures are like moon rocks: prosaic in one sense and at the same time absolutely alien and absolutely thrilling.

Kacper’s previous project, Side Effects, focused on the friction between mankind and nature, and the discordant beauty that that conflict reveals. His latest work, a series titled Over, looks at the land after that struggle has been decided; he captures the traces of mankind upon a quiet Earth where you feel the presence of humans but never quite see them.

Kacper’s photographs (as well as his book, Side Effects) have been honored with numerous awards, and his work has shown everywhere from Paris and Beijing to Copenhagen, Vienna, and Moscow. But his exhibit opening at The Curator Gallery this week is only his second in the United States, and I feel fortunate to be able to bring seen-it-all New Yorker's a little something they haven’t seen before.  – Curator, Bill Shapiro

 The Curator Gallery, Chelsea
520 West 23rd St, NY
November 3 – December 17, 2016
Curated by Bill Shapiro

Kacper Kowalski’s photographs have been honored by World Press Photo (2009, 2014, 2015) and Picture of the Year International (2012, 2014, 2015, 2016), among many others. His first book of photography, Side Effects, received awards from Photo District News and the Moscow International Foto Awards. He lives in Gdynia, a port city in northern Poland.

Bill Shapiro served as the Editor-in-Chief of LIFE, the legendary photo magazine and, later, as the founding editor of the award-winning website LIFE.com.  He is currently the Director of Editorial & New Business Enterprises at Fast Company and sits on the Art Advisory Board for the SXSW festival.